Eagles, Bobcats ready for SOC showdown

BEAVER- The 4-3 Eastern Eagles will play host to the 3-4 Green Bobcats this week in conference play in Beaver. Green will look to bring their conference record back to 2-2 to even the slate, while Eastern could walk out of this one with a 4-1 home record. Both teams will rely heavily on an effective run game on what could potentially be a cold evening for football, with temperatures possibly dropping to the 40s in the evening.

Green is coming off of a non-conference lost last week to the West Union Dragons. They surrendered 38 points while pushing 20 of their own across the board. They will need to limit the ground attack of Clay Martin and Noah Gray to contain the Eagles offense this week.

That may be a challenge for the Bobcats, as both Martin and Gray had double digit rushing attempts in last Friday’s 36-14 downfall to the East Tartans. Those carries set up several missed opportunities off of play action calls that could provide a mismatch in favor of Eastern this week.

Coach Scott Tomlinson realizes the important of those carries last week and hopes they can establish the same approach in this game.

“(We want) to control the line of scrimmage and run the ball,” he said of his offensive game plan against Green. “About the same as every week. We like to establish the run first then throw the ball off of play action. We had opportunities last week, we had one 70-yard pass called back for a penalty, we shot ourselves in the foot last week and need to eliminate those mistakes. We talk about winning the big game and for us this is a big one.”

As for his opponents offense, Coach Tomlinson stressed the importance of getting pressure in the pocket to his team.

“They give several looks. We didn’t do a good job of getting off blocks (last week),” he said when asked about keeping the Bobcats off the board.